I was 12 years old, I hung with a group of guys that were called: ‘The Caney Road Boys’ named after the street they lived on. One of the boys, Joey C, took out a book about hypnosis from the local library. He read the book and began instructing us on what he had learned. Here’s a bunch of 12 year old kids running around the neighborhood, trying to hypnotize anyone that would let them try. We were each trying different techniques that the book had suggested. Some were using a pendulum, others the glint in their eye, or simply holding their index finger upside-down and moving it from side to side. This is the method I chose to use. My first success was with this method, so I stuck with it. I ended up hypnotizing over 50 kids once I really got the hang of it. Things were getting so crazy, that the principal of my school called my parents and told them to make me stop because it was getting out of control. My hypnosis days were over in that town.

That summer, my parents rented a cabin in Lyndy Lake New Jersey. The summers were always special to me when my folks treated us to this place. It is one of North Jersey’s most beautiful lake communities. It had real log cabins, a gorgeous lake, and a recreation building called the Manor House. The only negative thing I can remember about those Lyndy Lake summers, were the giant mosquitoes that came out to eat you in the evening.

It was the middle of the summer and there was a dance at the church, a Catholic church in a nearby neighborhood. One of the older kids piled five or six of us into a ‘55’ Chevy. All the kids were sitting around in chairs in little cliques. I was on the younger end of the spectrum; just walking around and not getting a lot of respect.

That summer, my parents rented a cabin in Lyndy Lake New Jersey. The summers were always special to me when my folks treated us to this place. It is one of North Jersey’s most beautiful lake communities. It had real log cabins, a gorgeous lake, and a recreation building called the Manor House. The only negative thing I can remember about those Lyndy Lake summers, were the giant mosquitoes that came out to eat you in the evening.

It was the middle of the summer and there was a dance at the church, a Catholic church in a nearby neighborhood. One of the older kids piled five or six of us into a ‘55’ Chevy. All the kids were sitting around in chairs in little cliques. I was on the younger end of the spectrum; just walking around and not getting a lot of respect.

I saw a guy; around 16 years of age, sitting in a circle with a group of kids all huddled around him. I noticed that he was about to attempt to hypnotize a young girl about 14 years old. I bravely butted in and asked: “What method do you use? I use the finger.” He said, “I use the glint in my eye. Let’s do this together.” Another girl of the same age jumped up and asked me to use her as my subject. I took her over to an adjacent area, while the other guy about 20 feet away from me, began on his victim. I got her under in lickity split time. Her girlfriend, however, didn’t believe her friend was hypnotized. I said “trust me…she’s out.”

I told her that I would ask her friend to do something that wasn’t in her normal character to do, and prove the fact that she was under. The girlfriend whispered in my ear that her friend didn’t smoke; she hated cigarettes.

One myth about hypnosis is that you can’t make someone do something out of their character, but it’s usually not in the normal character of a person to run around squawking like a chicken either, and I had many of my subjects do that, and worse. I instructed my subject that she had been smoking for years, and that she may cough a little, but that she would smoke an entire pack of cigarettes.

Yes, this 12 year old punk …’me’ pulled out a pack of Marlboros and handed her a smoke. She puffed and coughed away until the sight of it grew too much for me to bear. Her girlfriend couldn’t believe her eyes.

Meanwhile the other guy was still working on his victim, as a Priest broke up the session with the words: “What’s going on here? There is no such thing as hypnotism.” He grabbed the girl by the arm and told us that it was over. I advised him that it might be a good idea if he would let me snap this girl out of her state of mind before he dragged her off to ‘who knows where.’ He instead, grabbed me by the ear and removed me from the dance area, while placing the young girl in the hands of a Nun. The guy, who drove us all there, was instructed by the Priest to gather up the Lyndy Lake crew, and get lost. Instead of everyone being pissed at me for ending the party early for them, I was their hero.

When I arrived back at the family cabin, Mom and Dad said that a Priest had called. “You know you weren’t supposed to be playing around with that hypnotism stuff”, Mom exclaimed. “And the Priest says that the Catholic church says hypnotism doesn’t exist.”

To my father, what a Priest said was law. 10% of his whole pay check went to the church. My Dad picked up the phone to call the church to offer his apologies again, and was told: “The Priest just left, but when he gets back, we will have him call you.”

15 minutes later there was a knock on the door, and who is standing there but the Priest, the little girl, who was still half asleep, and her parents. The Priest said: “I don’t know what you did to this girl but she is not well and we are not happy about it.” Always the smartass even at 12, I replied: “Well, since hypnotism doesn’t exist, why don’t you talk to God and let him fix it?” My Dad gave me a look that only those about to be beaten to a pulp could imagine.

I immediately pulled the young lady aside and said. “Can you hear my voice Sherry?”She replied “Yes”. I then proceeded to bring her out of it with the words I had spoken so many times before to those under my influence. She snapped out of it and was fine.

As the parents of Sherry were escorting her to their car, the Priest exclaimed: “This was an ‘act’ between those two kids, and we’ll never speak of it again!” When the cabin door closed, my father shook his head as my mother winked at me and gave me the thumbs up!

I used self hypnotism to overcome phobias and anxieties. There are good uses for hypnotism. Self hypnotism is very helpful on many occasions. The caution is to be very careful what you command yourself to do under a state of hypnosis.

I use to have a phobia of dogs. I used hypnosis to end my phobia. Today I own a dog and I pet other dogs.